eighties flashback.
I just watched Dirty Dancing. I think that's only the second time I've ever seen it all the way through.
The first time was on a bus during my junior year of high school on the way to the Cincinnati Zoo. I remember being really upset that we couldn't find the only sleeping bag my family ever owned on the one occasion I actually needed it...because my biology class was spending the night. In the zoo. I took a garbage bag full of blankets and what my dad, trying to make it sound like a good idea, called "carpet remnants" (you know, instead of "hunks of carpet I found in the basement that never made it to being part of the living room floor"). My biggest worry was that I would look ridiculous showing up with my garbage bag and reject carpet. To my surprise (and utter joy), basically no one in Houston County, least of all high school girls, owns sleeping bags. It was very out of character for me to be so embarrassed. Even now, I can't work out what it was that I was so worried about.
And then, when I was there...I ended up finding out that my best friend had recently lost her virginity. In the back of a pick-up truck. And I was worried about some carpet scraps.
What a weird and horrible experience that turned out to be. The zoo was really nice though.
In 1984 or '85, I think, my sister took baton lessons. I was amazingly jealous. It's possible I haven't been that jealous since then. Of course, I was about four years old at the time and I could really only feel one emotion at a time (like Tinker Bell) so I guess they all felt stronger then. At any rate, Amy learned to do these amazing things....well...it seemed that way. Really all she learned how to do was twirl a stick in one hand. But it was a really cool stick!
When I was a little older, I got cheap batons at toy stores, but they never had enough weight at the ends to work right. I'd just end up hitting myself. Usually on the side of my head.
Another part of this class resulted in her learning how to dance with a streamer. Or is it called a ribbon? It was gold on one side and silver on the other, which I always associated with the friends song I'd heard my sister's Girl Scout troop sing, "Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other's gold." I'm not sure how, probably pity, but I ended up with a streamer, too. Only mine was red and silver and was taped directly to a wooden stick, whereas my sisters was fastened to a plastic stick with a little chain so that it could move around easier. I was so proud of that thing.
Then, in 1987, when Dirty Dancing came out, my sister bought the soundtrack. That was the year I started kindergarten. She was in sixth grade...and seemed, to me, oddly fascinated with mix tapes. In reality, I doubt she even made two. I was just amazed at this, another Cool Thing my sister could do.
Me? I was dancing with my red streamer to Mickey and Sylvia singing "Love Is Strange." "Baybayy Ohoh Baayybbayy...Myy Sweeet Baybay...You're the one." Strange, tortured guitar chords and pluckings ensue. It's amazing to me how much that one tape plays as the background to my entire childhood.
I remember my sister saying that her friend Heather liked "She's Like the Wind." I just found out Patrick Swayze sang that song. He sings?!
Feel her breath on my face
Her body close to me
Can't look in her eyes
She's out of my league
Just a fool to believe
I have anything she needs
She's like the wind.
I watched the movie tonight and it was very strange for me. When I saw it last, I was about the same age Jennifer Grey is in the movie. When Baby finds out what sordid things are going on behind her perfect world, I was sitting next to the friend that had told almost everyone else about her "experience." Except me. She was afraid I would judge her, our families not so different from those who would've gone to Kellerman in the summer of '63. And yet, she wanted everyone else to know that the self-proclaimed wallflower she used to be had died and they could now accept her. Only they didn't.
The music still strikes me as being at some moments magical and at others mysterious. It will be impossible for me to outgrow Patrick Swayze. Impossible. And yet, the setting doesn't fit the music. The early 60's to the soundtrack of twenty years later? And for that music to win an Oscar? Really?
That's not to say that the movie isn't good. It is. And I feel strangely disobedient watching it. One of Amy's friends had a sleepover and that's where Amy saw it. The friend's mom talked to my mom. This was a big deal. I was wildly curious. What could possibly happen to the girl in the pink dress on the cover of the tape I listened to on repeat? What was it? What had she seen that I hadn't?
That night at the zoo, cuddled up in carpet and picnic blankets, the same questions floated through my head.
I never did learn how to twirl a baton properly.
The first time was on a bus during my junior year of high school on the way to the Cincinnati Zoo. I remember being really upset that we couldn't find the only sleeping bag my family ever owned on the one occasion I actually needed it...because my biology class was spending the night. In the zoo. I took a garbage bag full of blankets and what my dad, trying to make it sound like a good idea, called "carpet remnants" (you know, instead of "hunks of carpet I found in the basement that never made it to being part of the living room floor"). My biggest worry was that I would look ridiculous showing up with my garbage bag and reject carpet. To my surprise (and utter joy), basically no one in Houston County, least of all high school girls, owns sleeping bags. It was very out of character for me to be so embarrassed. Even now, I can't work out what it was that I was so worried about.
And then, when I was there...I ended up finding out that my best friend had recently lost her virginity. In the back of a pick-up truck. And I was worried about some carpet scraps.
What a weird and horrible experience that turned out to be. The zoo was really nice though.
In 1984 or '85, I think, my sister took baton lessons. I was amazingly jealous. It's possible I haven't been that jealous since then. Of course, I was about four years old at the time and I could really only feel one emotion at a time (like Tinker Bell) so I guess they all felt stronger then. At any rate, Amy learned to do these amazing things....well...it seemed that way. Really all she learned how to do was twirl a stick in one hand. But it was a really cool stick!
When I was a little older, I got cheap batons at toy stores, but they never had enough weight at the ends to work right. I'd just end up hitting myself. Usually on the side of my head.
Another part of this class resulted in her learning how to dance with a streamer. Or is it called a ribbon? It was gold on one side and silver on the other, which I always associated with the friends song I'd heard my sister's Girl Scout troop sing, "Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other's gold." I'm not sure how, probably pity, but I ended up with a streamer, too. Only mine was red and silver and was taped directly to a wooden stick, whereas my sisters was fastened to a plastic stick with a little chain so that it could move around easier. I was so proud of that thing.
Then, in 1987, when Dirty Dancing came out, my sister bought the soundtrack. That was the year I started kindergarten. She was in sixth grade...and seemed, to me, oddly fascinated with mix tapes. In reality, I doubt she even made two. I was just amazed at this, another Cool Thing my sister could do.
Me? I was dancing with my red streamer to Mickey and Sylvia singing "Love Is Strange." "Baybayy Ohoh Baayybbayy...Myy Sweeet Baybay...You're the one." Strange, tortured guitar chords and pluckings ensue. It's amazing to me how much that one tape plays as the background to my entire childhood.
I remember my sister saying that her friend Heather liked "She's Like the Wind." I just found out Patrick Swayze sang that song. He sings?!
Her body close to me
Can't look in her eyes
She's out of my league
Just a fool to believe
I have anything she needs
She's like the wind.
The music still strikes me as being at some moments magical and at others mysterious. It will be impossible for me to outgrow Patrick Swayze. Impossible. And yet, the setting doesn't fit the music. The early 60's to the soundtrack of twenty years later? And for that music to win an Oscar? Really?
That's not to say that the movie isn't good. It is. And I feel strangely disobedient watching it. One of Amy's friends had a sleepover and that's where Amy saw it. The friend's mom talked to my mom. This was a big deal. I was wildly curious. What could possibly happen to the girl in the pink dress on the cover of the tape I listened to on repeat? What was it? What had she seen that I hadn't?
That night at the zoo, cuddled up in carpet and picnic blankets, the same questions floated through my head.
I never did learn how to twirl a baton properly.
Labels: childhood., movies.
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